Quality of Medical Care in the Army

I have been in and out of a number of military medical facilities in my career spanning 29 years. My experience can be summed up as follows:-

1. RMO and super specialists are by and large caring and dedicated.

2. Intermediatry medical system is not so patient freindly.

Before starting with the criticism let me put on record the fact I owe a lot to super-specialists in the Army. But to quote some examples of 2nd type conduct will only be in order.

(a) Recently I caught cold. First I went to an Army doctor, she listened to me (that is right - just listened) and prescribed medicine for five days. When there was no improvement I went to a civilian doctor, he listened, took my temperature, checked my chest and lungs with stethoscope, took my BP and perscribed medicine for three days and I was cured.

(b) Once my daughter was having fever and as is usual for a child, she was scared while the doctor was `listening' to her and us. Instead of putting her at ease the concerned lady doctor gave a lecture (in our presence) on good manners.

(c) At another time I went to a Duty MO with some complaint and he needed my BP reading. Instead of doing it himself, the doctor told me get my BP checked from the Nursing Assistant.

(d) In short. I find that army doctors display strong inhibition about making physical examination of the patient. They tend to be impersonal and standoffish. They display a total lack of concern. The subordinate staff is by and large rough and preemptory with patient because they are not checked by the doctors.

(d) I have also seen relatives of the in-patients (admitted) pushing the stretchers and wheel chairs in army hospitals. I have also seen in-patients being used as runners and orderlies by the doctors (apparently by keeping them in beyound necessary period). I have also seen hospital Ayahs and Class IV being employed in the houses of doctors and so on.

What could be the solution. first and foremost, there should be public notices about Doctor -patient relationship in all medical facilities. Second ther should be a fair mechanism to represent against the misbehaviour by the doctors and para-medic staff. Third there ought to be an efficiency audit by outside agency of doctor and facilities. These steps would go a long way in improving the quality of medical services in the Army and remove one fo the major casues of frustration.

Honour of Soldier

I am deeply concerned with the supercilicious attitude displayed by section of Indian Elite as also by certain newspapers who are normally percieved to be in-with-the-establishment. They show no qualms in using putdowners like `general has been ticked of' while describing some imaginary interaction between a service chief and the minister or `the ministry has ordered' thereby subtly attributing the power to buearucracy for directions given by the cabinet/ ministerial.

Limits were crossed during on-going tussle between the Services and the Government of the day on the issue of serious anomalies with regard to soldier's pay by 6th CPC and subsequent bureaucratic perfidity. Three influential media personalities ran a campaign against the Services in general and Navy and their CNS in particular. Mr Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express, who apparently wanted to secure a Padma Bhushan for himself made serious charges of disobedience against the Service Chiefs and attempted to run the services down for asking for restoration of extant parties unilaterally and illegally altered by a Committee of Secretaries. Second was Mr Vir Sangvi of HT, who had once upon a time advocated secession of J&K from India . Third being Ms Barkha Dutt who developed deep aversion to Navy in general and CNS in particular for standing up the right. Post 26/11 Terror Attack on Mumbai systematic propaganda to divert the focus commenced even while bullets were being fired at Taj –Trident and Nariman House. And as expected it started with Indian Express http://www.indianexpress.com/news/express-editorial-deadly-confusion/392070/ who on 29 November castigated services in general and Navy in particular for creating deadly confusion. True to form the self-same newspaper had nothing to say about role of other organs of government. Similar story was repeated in its special report on crossing the LoC carried by the Indian Express Sunday on 29 March 2009. After opening with mandatory few lines about life of a soldier the story focussed on life and exploits of a guide for terrorists and ended with apportioning the success of operation to local police who claimed to have provideed information.

Ms Arundhati Ghose, a retired Indian Foreign Service Officer wrote a motivated wrticle on the issue of pay anomalies in the Tribune, Chandigarh. This article is apiece with functioning for her ilk – bureaucrats and their friends. They start by totally ignoring the true basis of a problem, then raise irrelevant issues to divert attention and finally end with audacious but totally false attack on the very existence of aggrieved party and if all that fails then go into deep slumber. For her every thing said or done by the services is motivated and every thing against tem is self-explanatory. For example

(a) She starts by totally ignoring the genesis of the problem. The pay anomalies for the military stem from the fact, that despite consist urging of Chiefs, no military person was taken into the Pay Commission. Later when anomalies in pay commission report were sought to be resolved by the government through a committee of secretaries (COS), the Chiefs again asked the government to include representative in the committee. Rather they were given a false assurance that ` the issues raised by the Armed Forces were well understood by them and will be pursued most honestly and diligently by the Def Secy (a member in the CoS), - an assurance which was not kept and Cabinet was led to taking a wrong decision or deliberately took a decision patently against the legitimate interests of the services.

(b) Ms Ghose goes on to tell a plain lie that, `the three Chiefs of Staff led by the Navy Chief sent an unclassified note to their ranks not to implement the decision of the Cabinet by not submitting their pay slips on October 1’. The service chiefs had done their scared and totally legal duty of asking the government for early rectification of serious anomalies in pay and pension of their subordinates to keep the orders pending in the interim, and Ms Ghose faults them for that. Strange! Really strange! The signal they sent to their men was informatory in nature and nowhere has it asked them to not submit pay slips and Ms Ghose is apparently clueless about system of pay disbursment in the military because military men do not submit pay-slips. I see no defiance in this, rather I see grace on part of Chiefs, becasue they have not gone public with the fact that despite being informed by the Services about anomalies in advance (on 30 August 08) the government went ahead and notified the same on 01 Sep 08 and for next 20 days the PM and his cabinet did not find time to address the issue.

(c) She claims that by not accepting unjust salaries the Chiefs and military have gone against constitution. Another lie as will be evident from a plain reading of relevant provisions of the Constitution. Article 52(2) of the Constitution reads: "Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision the supreme command of the Defence Forces of the Union shall be vested in the President and the exercise thereof shall be regulated by law." Apparently military men are not under any obligation to accept unlawful orders of any government.

(d) Most serious charge she made against the military is that, `The storm that has arisen today clearly has its roots in a general, if widespread, contempt of the forces for their civilian masters and counterparts’. She provides no facts to support her case. First and foremost Ms Ghose ought to know that in democracy it is the `people’ who are the Masters and nobody else, least of all the bureaucrat, should arrogate to himself/herself the mastery over the armed forces of the nation which are made up of free citizen who has volunteered to bear arms for the nation. That makes the soldier a part of masters and not slave as Ms Ghose would like to think. So far as her lie that soldiers hold civilians in contempt is concerned, it is indeed apiece with bureaucratic design to launch audacious attack on very existence of military as an honourable profession. She wants us to forget the fact that every soldier has a mother who is/was a civilian, is married to a spouse who is/was civilian, his children are civilians and so is his extended family.

To understand the underlying causes of this animosity we have to travel in past a little. Since 1947 the Armed Forces have been done-in and defanged by successive regimes with very little or nil resistance from senior military leaders. The facts are too well documented and need no repetition. We all know that no one from political or bureaucratic establishment was punished for 1962 Debacle. Even the civil servant involved in Tehlka expose have gone scot free. Hence when the services under the leadership of Admiral Sureesh Mehta stood up for their rights after implementation of unfair 6th CPC award, the politician-bureaucratic nexus was jolted. They wanted to get even with this man who had shown the temerity to stand up for his command. If allowed to have justice he would provide a precedent for other right thinking citizen to demand the same. So they called on the friends in media to pay what Justice Sachar has tellingly described as `Debts to repay’. Likes of Shekhar Gupta, Sangvi, Ms Dutt and Ms Ghose are only repaying a part of their IOUs when they malign the CNS and the Services. Even more serious is the fact that such misreprting, howsoever, demeaning for the concerned service, is never ever refuted by official sources. This silence seem to reinforce the impression created by the media reports in first place.

Since this kind of information is normally attubuted to un-named sources apparently it can be considred intentional and institutionalised attempt to destroy fair reputation of the services and belittle their contribution.

Dying for the Nation - Dying for the Elite

Tweleve terrorists struck at Mumbai on 26 November 2008. It took 60 hours to eliminate them and India lost nearly 200 lives. There was a huge outcry for accountability and strong response. All led by elite of the nation, who gathered in large numbers at Gateway of India to demand that heads roll. The result was resignation by the then Home Minister. Even the policemen who died sitting inside their vehicle were awarded highest gallantry awards.

Now let us cut to March 2009. The CM of J&K is proactively pursuing his agenda to get Armed Forces Special Powwers Act repealed. Many a editor are writing in his support. The ministry is demanding that an enquiry against soldiers accused of `killing the innocent' be wrapped up in three days flat. Afterall J&K is at peace, why should Army be there in first place and even if it is there it should learn to behave in a manner befitting its place (at the bottom). It is at such a juncture that 17 Terrorists infiltrated in Kashmir. They were challanged and eliminated by the Armymen in dense jungles over next 8 days. Sadly Major Sharma and 7 Jawans also laid down their lives.

Was there any outcry from the self same elite for any kind of accountability? Was there any demand for the CM to explain his haste? Was there any demand for the ministry to justify it's illegal fiats. Was there any demand for the Defence Minsiter to explain as to how does he plan to insulate his Army from those who lose no opportunity to belittle and decry the soldier and his contribution. No! The elite has no time for the dead soldiers. The editors are busy perdicting political combinations post-elections. So what is some soldiers die. India has enough poor to fill the ranks of its all volunteer army and the IMA will keep producing idealistic lads to lead their men to certain death so that the Nation can exist to be exploited by the Elite.